Girl's Night Out!

Photo by JohnONolan.

Time out with gal pals comes too infrequently for my liking. My children are getting a little older, and as my husband and I like to say, we are finally “out of the woods”, allowing more time to reconnect with our former lives. One such area oft’ neglected these last years are the coveted “girl’s night out”. It is a rare occurrence when more than one of my girlfriends can find a mutually available evening to get together. Unlike men, who seem to have an innate sense of entitlement for boys trips, poker nights and marathon golf outings, women being in general, less selfish, seldom indulge in nights dedicated solely to fulfilling their needs of female bonding. “We should do this more often!” has become a common mantra chanted inevitably at the end of these infrequent occasions.

I have enjoyed some epic girl’s nights this summer. I mentioned one such night earlier this summer in “Are My Labia Too Long”. Most recently, I connected with some newer friends for a “support” dinner for one friend who had undergone some appallingly unfair treatment in a very important professional evaluation. Her husband sensing her need for a degree of support he could not provide her, wisely enlisted a group of like minded women, to whisk her away, for an evening of martinis and girl talk.

I have always enjoyed engaging in conversations whose topics are limitless and whose participants hard to offend. It took me many years to finally get my college roommate and best friend to talk about sex (a favorite conversation topic of mine). She had never really talked about it much prior to meeting me, and so was highly private and uncomfortable with detail sharing.

I also really appreciate a group that I can swear around. I am Canadian, and swearing is part of our everyday vocabulary. The “F” word is a common first word for a child, and our word collection box in Kindergarten was rife with profanity. When I hang with one of my friend’s pals, I literally have to ask if this is a swear party or not. I have become quite adept at shutting off the cursing flow on such occasions, as I truly fear offending people. I generally let someone else in the group drop the first f-bomb. Once it is out of the bag though, it’s like a heavy weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and I begin to swear away, loving the freedom of uninhibited speech!

(Warning: the "C" word is coming!) I once subjected an annoyingly self centered first date to what later became known as the “Cunt Test”. This word is universally agreed upon as being one of the most offensive words in the cussing vernacular. I, who love to swear, never use it, and it is a word that can even offend me. Much of our dinner date had been spent with me listening to him expound on the benefits of himself, complete with an anchovy fiber stuck to his lips. I zoned out repeatedly during his diatribe, but could never quite take my focus away from his mouth, as I watched this fiber of food, dance with his every word. At some point in his lengthy monologue he finally turned to me and said, “Tell me a little something about you?” There are only a few occasions where I have been ever so proud of myself, for saying something truly glib and inspiring, and this was one such occasion.

Without batting an eye, I proceeded to tell him that I was a pretty easy going lass, who was hard to offend. “For example”, I said, “Take swear words. To me these are just words. They mean nothing to me. The word “cunt” for example...just a word like any other. “Cunt! Cunt! Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!, it doesn’t offend me.” Needless to say, he was stunned into a welcomed silence! (Subsequent suitors were subjected to the “Cunt Test” to see if they were worth a second date.)

This latest GNO (Girl’s Night Out) included all of the ingredients I truly enjoy. Someone dropped the F-bomb early, so my filter was off, and it wasn’t long before we were comparing our bikini waxing preferences and telling stories of objects removed from crazy people’s asses. My husband is fully aware that any aspect of our relationship is open for discussion with my peeps, and that I will likely spend most of the time, when he is the topic of discussion, telling them only the very worst things he does in our relationship. This is the joy of girlfriends!

A college friend sent me an email today that inspired this post regarding the benefits of a good GNO that I heretofore had not known. Apparently the relationships women have with each other have fringe benefits. According to a variety of studies, friendship can increase your life expectancy, reduce your risk for heart attack, make you sleep better and eat less, slow aging, prevent illnesses like the common cold, and enhance our memory and learning capacity. Very few activities that I participate in can offer so many health benefits! A Swedish study reported that lack of close friendships compared equally to smoking as a risk factor for increased cardiovascular disease! Women’s relationships with each other are an even more powerful wellness tool than men’s friendships with each other. Seems that because our topics of discussion are limitless we are able to offload much of our baggage and find support for a variety of issues.  Apparently, talking about sports does not accomplish the same thing.

Hanging with the ladies helps our bodies release serotonin, the substance intimately linked to all of these great side benefits. In her email she quoted a psychology lecturer from Stanford as saying that “the best thing that a man could do for his health is to marry a woman whereas for a woman, the best thing she could do for her health was to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends”.

My friend in need of support that night, found it. All in the circle were there to build her up and diminish the influence this particular fat, misogynistic, bastard, evaluator had had on her life. Serotonin was a-flowing and we were like a psychically linked coven! I am sure we all slept better that night and years were added to our lives!

The GNO has taken on a new meaning for me. I am now aware that my very health and the health of my most cherished martini buddies hangs in the balance! It is therefore my duty to promote many more GNOs to make sure that we support each other in optimizing our health and wellness!  How about next Thursday?